Spotlight on Women's Psycho-Spiritual Development
ITP is one of the few accredited institutions in the world that offers a broad range of Masters and Ph.D. level courses in various fields related to Transpersonal Psychology. The following is a list of courses related to women’s psycho-spiritual development that have been offered in the past. The particular electives offered by the Institute vary at any given time. The school tries to be responsive to the particular interests of the current student body and aims to have the curriculum reflect those interests. Information on current classes can be found in the academic catalog.
Women’s Psycho-Spiritual Development
Featuring the creative work of the Jungian analyst Marion Woodman, women’s psycho-spiritual development is explored focusing on the symbols, issues, and challenges particular to women. This course is designed to deliver an experiential understanding of how one’s personal addictions function for us in a patriarchal environment. In addition, students will be introduced to Woodman’s understanding of the difference between perfection and wholeness in the quest for individuation and self-realization. Special attention will be placed upon the crucial value of dream work and inner work in the healing of the wounded feminine.
The course provides a working understanding of the particular operation of such archetypal energies as the Negative Mother, the Animus, and the Virgin in contemporary women who are engaged in psycho-spiritual development. A theoretical, imaginable, and experiential appreciation of the role of the body and the integration of its wisdom in women’s journey toward healing and wholeness will be explored, and students will be encouraged to develop a deeper appreciation for the role of the analyst or helping professional in this journey toward healing and wholeness.
Women’s Mysteries, Women’s Wisdom
This course explores psychological and spiritual developmental themes in women’s lives, including childhood experiences of the sacred, the search for identity, resacralization of the female body, and life-long initiations into women’s wisdom from menarche to menopause.
Goals of the course will include the exploration of women’s search for identify in different relational contexts, including: connecting with the girl within; exploring patterns and values carried within the motherline; examining unconscious and incomplete relationships with men and the Masculine; creating and being sustained in community. An overview of the different psychological and physiological developmental phases in women’s lives as a step toward resacralizing the female body; menarche will be a particular focus for this aspect of the course. Students will deepen their understanding of the conscious Feminine, and the Virgin, Mother, and Crone archetypal dimensions of the Feminine. Through the coursework, students will identify Feminine patterns of psychological initiation as modeled though myths and rituals. The ultimate goal of the course is to offer a more complete image of the eternal or divine Feminine.
The Feminine in World Spiritual Traditions
This course explores the feminine in world spiritual traditions from prehistory to the present, as well as from a cross-cultural perspective. The sacred feminine is considered through several lenses. The first views the female as divine, as the Goddess: worshipped almost universally in prehistory and by primal peoples. A second will look at the lives and writings of some saintly women who exemplify feminine spirituality. A third will be those characteristics we identify as feminine in world spiritual traditions.
